


Anyone But You (Constant Variable)

by Cottonstones



Category: Empires, Panic At The Disco, Young Veins
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-18
Updated: 2012-06-18
Packaged: 2017-11-08 00:20:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cottonstones/pseuds/Cottonstones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It'd be a lie to say that Ryan was the first man that Jon's kissed. He isn't even Jon's second kiss with a man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anyone But You (Constant Variable)

"Why won't you do it?" Ryan asks as he takes a deep drag off the joint that's pinched between his fingers. Jon raises an eyebrow, just the one, and almost laughs, because he knows that it annoys Ryan simply for the fact that Ryan can't do it. Jon can feel the rough brick of the wall they're leaning against at the back of a recording studio in L.A. somewhere. The brick is catching at the fabric of his shirt and holding onto him, like a million microscopic hands unwilling to let Jon go.

"I've told you a million times already," Jon states, pulling away from the wall to take the joint despite Ryan not offering it up. Ryan frowns at him, but it lacks venom. He stares with blank, thoughtful eyes at Jon as Jon takes his own long drag.

"Tell me again," Ryan says plainly.

"One million and one," Jon says around a hit. Ryan rolls his eyes and inspects his nails. Jon won't say it out loud, but it's a very diva-looking move.

"I don't believe that's the reason. No one likes a city that much."

"Chicago isn't like all the other cities," Jon insists. Ryan sighs and pushes away from the microscopic hands before leaning into Jon’s space, a familiar move but with a twist, a little something that's still fresh enough to make Jon lose his breath.

"You sound like one of those parents who insists that their child is special and not at all like all of the other kids," Ryan laughs a little. It's not a pleased laugh. It's more bitter than that. "And stop hogging that shit." Ryan plucks the joint from Jon before he goes back to the microscopic hands. Jon leans back against his own brick wall and the hands welcome him back with open arms.

"I'm like one of those animals," Jon says. Ryan is already laughing before Jon can even finish. "If I'm not in my natural habitat, I'll die. Do you really want to be the one that kills me, Ross?"

"Maybe. If you keep comparing yourself to animals with particular habitual homes, you've obviously lost it and should be put out of your misery," Ryan smirks, killing the joint instead of Jon. He rubs it into the wall. Jon tips his head back for a moment, watching the silver smoke curl up into the bright-blue sky and disappear into the blaze of the sun.

They're quiet. Jon grabs his sunglasses from where they were hanging off his shirt front. He glances at Ryan before he slides them on. Ryan looks over and there's a tiny hint of a smile curling on the right side of his face.

Ryan pulls away from his wall and comes back over to Jon. He stands right next to him, their shoulders brushing. Jon stares at the brick buildings in front of them. They're everywhere, really: behind them and in front of them and to the left and right of them.

"Are you going to give me a real reason?" Ryan asks. Jon feels those long, spidery digits of Ryan's creeping across the skin on the inside of his wrist, pressing against the pulse point before they glide down Jon's shorter fingers. Ryan curls his index finger around Jon's.

It's fairly innocent and they're hidden away in an alley in L.A. where no one can find them. They've done worst shit by now, dirtier shit, but this feels strangely intimate to Jon, like, if someone were to see them, they'd instantly know that the two of them had recently started fucking each other's brains out.

"Not until you believe this is the real reason." Jon flexes his finger around Ryan's and turns his head to the side so that he's looking at Ryan's profile. Ryan’s mouth droops down in a small frown. He turns his head to meet Jon's gaze and, when he does, Jon doesn't hesitate to lean forward and destroy any space that separated them.

Jon's only been kissing Ryan for the last few months, since April or May, since stuffy hotel rooms in South Africa. It'd be a lie to say that Ryan was the first man that Jon's kissed. There was Tom – he wants to be clear about that one, though. That was nothing beyond a drunken bet that Nick wouldn't let them back out of.

It hadn't been romantic at all. Tom was in the beginning stages of growing his beard and had scraped Jon's cheek. He also had tasted like the whiskey and wine that they'd taken from Nick's mom's liquor cabinet. Jon only knows what Tom tastes like because Tom, like a dumbass, had opened his mouth to protest the second Jon had leaned in. Shit, that kiss was bad.

Ryan isn't even Jon's second kiss with a man. Brendon had gotten him back in the _Fever_ days of Panic. They too had been drinking and Brendon wound an arm around Jon's neck, pressed up on tip-toes, and laid a wet, warm kiss on Jon's mouth. Jon was just drunk enough to let it linger for a few long seconds. There might have been tongue, whatever.

Ryan was Jon's third kiss with a man, but, in his defense, it was the first time there was no drinking involved. That had to count for something, right?

Ryan loops their fingers together and tilts his head, sliding open his jaw to let Jon deepen the kiss. It isn't like any time Jon's ever kissed Cassie – or any other girl, for that matter. Nothing Jon does with Ryan feels like anything he's ever experienced before. Ryan makes this pleased noise in the back of his throat as he lets Jon's tongue slide along his own, their mouths moving in slow, careful beats.

Someone could see them. Jon is quickly getting to a point where that doesn't scare him anymore.

***

Back at Ryan's house, it's nearly sunset. All of Ryan's shades are open, windows naked and letting all the golden light into Ryan's bedroom. Ryan looks gorgeous soaked in the glowing light of the dying day. Jon would grab his camera if his hands weren't busy pinning Ryan's rail-thin arms to the overly-soft bed.

Ryan arches against Jon's hold, like he's testing it. Jon keeps him down. Ryan's eyes fall closed. Jon grinds his hips in a circle and Ryan arches again, mouth open on a moan. Jon watches. He always does – he's always wanted to see it, see Ryan in this way.

He's heard Ryan jerk off before, back in their Panic tour bus days – he's heard them all jerk off – but Ryan was the only one that conjured up images to go along with the sounds. Jon got more than he bargained for when Ryan was with Keltie. Detailed accounts of Keltie and Ryan's sex life that she had told Cassie during their 'girl talks' were told by Cassie to Jon at night in their bed. She used to call it wild, nothing she ever wanted to do. Jon would agree on those nights – it was nothing he wanted to do, not with her, only if it was with Ryan.

Jon feels Ryan's thighs flexing against his hips, Ryan's heels digging into Jon's broad back. Jon bends to capture a kiss, sweet and warm, like the air around them. Ryan's fingers bite the bed sheet. He can feel Ryan's arms jerk under his palms. He doesn't believe he's hurting Ryan; they have a special word for that situation and everything.

"Jon," Ryan moans out, breathless and so fucking hot. Ryan's said Jon's name millions of times, but he's never enjoyed it as much as in these moments. "Can I ride you?" Ryan grits out as Jon fucks into his ass with sharp, hard thrusts. Jon grunts, his fingers digging into the pale skin just below Ryan's tattoos.

"You don't ever have to ask for that," Jon tells him. He gets his hands on Ryan's waist and, in one quick second, he's got their roles reserved. Jon's lying flat on his back with his hands anchored on Ryan's sharp juts of bone that he likes to call his hips. Ryan settles instantly, rolling his hips, lifting up off Jon before sinking back down.

Jon can say with all certainty that he's never done this with another man. He's never even pictured it as something he would one day do. Ryan spreads guitar-rough hands across Jon's chest as he rides Jon for all that he's worth. Ryan's head tips back and he growls. Jon really never pictured this between them. He'd always considered the two of them severely straight up until the day Jon began learning that Ryan was into getting his ass fucked by Keltie. That was when his thought process slowly opened, changed.

Ryan wraps a hand around his cock and jerks himself off quickly, head thrown back and hair in his eyes. Jon really needs to send Keltie some kind of 'thank you' note.

***

The windows are still naked a handful of hours later, as are Jon and Ryan. Jon presses a kiss to the thin bit of skin stretched across Ryan's collarbones. Ryan smells like soap and the fucking girly deodorant that, even after all these years, he refuses to give up.

Ryan sighs, content and lazy after their sex and shared shower. The sheets still smell like sex and a little like Jon's cologne. Ryan draws lazy, abstract patterns across Jon's hip with his fingertips.

"How are you so tan?" Ryan asks. "You've been here a month and you're already tanner than I've ever gotten in my four months here," Ryan says, his voice as soft and lazy as the movement of his fingertips scraping across Jon’s skin, sending his nerve endings into electric sparks.

"Good genes and the fact that I'm, you know, not a vampire."

Ryan snorts. "Shut up! I've been getting up earlier lately." His fingers stop their tracing and Jon would lament this fact if Ryan's hand had not curled warm and protective over his hip. "Jon?" Ryan asks softly.

"Yeah?"

Sometimes, Jon doesn't believe how easy the transition was from friends to lovers. It was too easy to slip into that new role with Ryan and it makes Jon question just how long he's wanted to be able to touch and taste and have Ryan. How long was Ryan waiting?

"Will you just get a place here? At least look at some of them around here? It could just be like a vacation home," Ryan says, his voice trying to worm the idea into Jon's brain. Jon sighs and rolls onto his back, Ryan's hand slipping from his hip, his fingers gliding across Jon's lower stomach as he moves.

"No," Jon answers simply.

Ryan props himself up on his elbows, his hands leaving Jon's body.

"Why the fuck not? It's not too much to ask, is it? To have you in the same state as me? To not have to wait these long stretches of time to see you and touch you and to have you under me? Come on, Jon."

Jon doesn't want to have this conversation, but Ryan does. Jon stares at Ryan's ceiling, intricate designs carved into the dark cherry wood, twists and turns and details you don't notice until you've already been looking for longer than ten minutes. It reminds him of Ryan.

"Say I do get a place out here, Ryan. What happens when this life is no longer good enough?" Jon asks. He keeps his voice calm and his words come easily enough – he's said them in his own mind a million and one times. Ryan looks down at him, confusion written across his face.

"What do you mean?"

"Come on, Ryan. When this hipster identity no longer works for you, when you outgrow the drugs and the music and the people, the whole scene – if I had a place out here, what would happen to me then?"

Ryan's jaw gets tight, but Jon expects it. He sits himself up and turns so that he and Ryan are face-to-face, their legs brushing.

"I'm..." Ryan opens and closes his mouth, like he's collecting his words, gathering them all up for Jon. "This isn't just some spur-of-the-moment thing, Jon. This is me."

"You're right, it's you, but it’s you right now, you know? Just like all those years ago, you were a flat-ironed, make-up-wearing teenager who had never listened to the Beatles, let alone wanted to make music like them."

"Jon – " Ryan tries to cut him off, red flushing his face. Jon shakes his head and leans forward, closing Ryan's heated cheeks between his palms.

"I'm not insulting you! I swear to God, I'm not. It's just...you wanted the real reason and I'm giving it to you," Jon explains. "It's okay that you get bored if your life's been the same for too long. I don't mind it. It makes things interesting, at the very least. It's who you are, Ryan. You find something new and someone new to lead you into the next part of your life."

Jon thinks 'Spencer,' 'Pete,' 'Alex,' 'Z' – he _thinks_ it, but he doesn't _say_ it. Ryan still seems to get it.

He brings his hands up to cup over Jon's, curling his fingers around Jon's hands and lowering them from his face but not letting them go. That's the important part – he doesn't let go.

"I'm not – I wouldn't leave you behind."

"This Ryan wouldn't, I know that, but I also know that you're never the same Ryan twice."

"If I'm always changing, always a new Ryan, then what does that make you?' Ryan asks, his voice tight yet weary, like how he sometimes gets when he talks to Spencer on the phone and the topic of Brendon comes up. It's not necessarily something he wants to talk about, but it’s something he knows he needs to talk about.

Jon strokes his thumbs along the inside of Ryan's wrists. "Me? I'm just Jon, that's all."

Ryan laughs. "The constant."

Jon nods. "Always the same, pretty much. The constant and the variable – the truest love story of them all," Jon muses, a grin spreading across his face despite the subject manner. Ryan laughs a little, but it all gives way to his blank face once again. He looks down at their joined hands.

"If you haven't noticed, you happen to be a huge part of my life," Ryan says, his eyes not meeting Jon's. "I mean, I don’t know if you think I do this kind of thing a lot or something, but I don't. There hasn’t been a guy before you. The point isn't about gender, actually,” Ryan says firmly. "I've flat-out never felt this way about someone else before, not as strong or as completely as I feel it with you."

"You trying to tell me that you love me?" Jon jokes. It's the only defense he has right now. He feels like Ryan's stripping him bare, layer by layer, with each word. Ryan looks up. He's serious, serious like he was when he asked Jon to join the band, serious like when he told Jon he wanted to leave Panic, serious like the first time he told Jon he wanted to kiss him.

"I do love you. You're much denser than I thought if you haven't worked that out by now," Ryan teases, flitting from serious to light in mere seconds.

"Nah, I knew you loved me from the moment we met. I love you, too, if that wasn't clear," Jon says. Ryan slaps at his thigh playfully. "Just like I loved that teenager whose guitar pedal I fixed and that guy who fell in love with classic rock and that guy who asked me to come with him. I love them all and I'll love whoever comes next. Variable or not, you'll always be Ryan."

Ryan smiles. Jon leans in and allows himself to taste that smile.

"You know, I don't really care who gets left behind in these 'changes,'" Ryan says, curling his hands around Jon's wrists to tug him closer. "All of them can go, any of them, anyone but you." Ryan holds Jon close and, for the first time since this relationship started, Jon can see himself in California, in the empty spaces next to Ryan.


End file.
